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[DataFramed Careers Series #4]: Acing the Data Science Interview

Today marks the last episode of our four-part DataFramed Careers Series on breaking into a data career. Today’s guest, Jay Feng, CEO of Interview Query, joins the show to break down all the most important things you need to know about interviewin

Jun 2022

Photo of Jay Feng
Guest
Jay Feng

Jay is the CEO of Interview Query, a remote data science interview preparation platform whose mission is to help every data scientist land a job. In a former life, he used to be a data scientist for 5+ years at startups like Jobr and Nextdoor.


Photo of Adel Nehme
Host
Adel Nehme

Adel is a Data Science educator, speaker, and Evangelist at DataCamp where he has released various courses and live training on data analysis, machine learning, and data engineering. He is passionate about spreading data skills and data literacy throughout organizations and the intersection of technology and society. He has an MSc in Data Science and Business Analytics. In his free time, you can find him hanging out with his cat Louis.

Key Takeaways

1

There are three key areas of focus in data science interviews: business acumen, communication/data storytelling ability, and technical intuition.

2

Every interview is also an opportunity to practice and improve your soft skills 

3

Understanding your own market value and confident communication skills are the key to successful salary negotiations

Key Quotes

In your first 90 days, go around and meet every single person that you think is important and then ask them who else you should meet. Then just keep on meeting people. Then try to add some business value extremely quickly. This is not very difficult because there are a lot of small things that people overlook and just don't do, like documentation. Documenting something that you find out isn't documented in your onboarding can provide huge value right away.

The key to successful salary negotiation is understanding your own market value. Generally, companies will hire you for the price that it costs to replace you. That's the brutal nature of hiring in general, and understanding your market value is the key to taking that to your advantage.

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